Flesh for Frankenstein [Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein] *** (1973, Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier, Monique van Vooren, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Arno Juerging, Srdjan Zelenovic) – Classic Movie Review 3354

Paul Morrissey’s 1973 3D gore horror movie extravaganza Flesh for Frankenstein is a provocative, gorgeous-looking film. Udo Kier is deliciously camp and crazy as Baron Frankenstein, who lusts over the male creature he creates. 

Literally an in-your-face experience when seen in 3D, with entrails flying gruesomely and gleefully out of the screen, co-writer/director Paul Morrissey’s 1973 3D gore horror movie extravaganza Flesh for Frankenstein is a provocative, gorgeous-looking film, mixing gay sensibility and camp humour with necrophilia and nuggets of Nietzsche.

While living in Serbia with the Baroness and their two children, the Baron Frankenstein is dreaming of creating a perfect Ancient Greek-style Serbian super-race to obey his commands, beginning by assembling a perfect female and male from parts of corpses.

Assisted by his henchman Otto, the Baron builds a desirable female body in his lab. But then he needs a male creature to be her lover, and the duo come across Sacha, a prospective monk leaving a local brothel and take his head for use on the male creature. They think Sacha is suitable for stud duty but he’s a sexually repressed asexual ascetic.

Meanwhile, the Baroness Frankenstein lusts after Nicholas, the dead lad’s friend. The Baron brings the two creatures together to mate, while Nicholas tries to free his dead friend.

Udo Kier is deliciously camp and crazy as Baron Frankenstein, who lusts over the marvellous male creature he creates after he finds the monster is not the heterosexual he intended to father his master race. And Andy Warhol protégé Joe Dallesandro plays Nicholas the randy farmhand stableboy, who is spotted and waylaid, along with his sexually repressed friend, by the Baron and Otto.

We also have Monique van Vooren as the Baroness Katrin Frankenstein, Dalila Di Lazzaro as the Female Monster, Arno Juerging as Otto the Baron’s assistant, and Srdjan Zelenovic as Sacha / the Male Monster.

Obviously not for all tastes, but, done with total straight conviction, it is outrageously entertaining and surprisingly polished for a product of the Warhol factory.

Interiors were filmed at the Cinecittà studio in Rome with an Italian crew.

The film was marketed in the US as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, presented in Space-Vision 3D in premiere engagements. The MPAA rated it X because of its explicit sexuality and violence. It was later cut to 93 minutes for an R rating for wider distribution in a version distributed for a 3D re-release in the 1980s. The British cinema version was the heavily cut print.

The US DVD releases are the uncut version, now unrated. The film had its TV première in the UK on November 17 2009, shown in 3D as part of Channel 4’s 3D Week.

Uncredited co-writer Tonino Guerra is better known as the author of Fellini’s Amarcord (1973) and Antonioni’s Blowup (1966). Kier stated that second unit director Antonio Margheriti had nothing to do with directing the film. He agreed to take credits for free as director for the Italian release to help the film get funds from the government.

Filming of Flesh for Frankenstein was quicker and less costly than expected, so the same team embarked on a companion piece, Blood for Dracula [Andy Warhol’s Dracula] (1974).

Paul Joseph Morrissey (February 23, 1938 – October 28, 2024)

Paul Morrissey (February 23, 1938 – October 28, 2024) is best known for Flesh (1968), Trash (1970), Heat (1972), Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), and Blood for Dracula (1974), all starring Joe Dallesandro, 1971’s Women in Revolt, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), and the New York trilogy: Forty Deuce (1982), Mixed Blood (1985), and Spike of Bensonhurst (1988).

Paul Morrissey died from pneumonia at a hospital in Manhattan, on 28 October 28, 2024, aged 86.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,354

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/

Italian model, actress and writer Dalila Di Lazzaro (born 29 January 1953)